The Power Of Shazam!

It’s finally official: The Rock (or should I say Dwayne Johnson) is playing Black Adam in WB’s Shazam movie. This casting is so good that there has to be a catch.

And there is.

According to reports from the head of New Line Cinema, the WB subsidiary that will be releasing Shazam, it’s possible that Shazam won’t be connected with the rest of the Justice League cinematic universe that Warner Bros. is building to. The reason? Shazam will have a “lighter tone” than Batman V Superman and any upcoming DC universe movies. Does WB not realize that many of Marvel’s movies have their own tones, but still fit into the larger Marvel cinematic universe? Watch Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Iron Man 3 together. While they have a lot of things in common, they are not the same movies, nor do they have the same tone. Yet they fit into the rest of what Marvel has planned for their movie universe.

This is, well, it’s pretty dumb if it’s true. And if it is true, it’s another example of WB’s seemingly complete incapability of creating a connected live action superhero universe to rival the one that Marvel Studios is creating. Can Shazam even succeed without the connection to the Man of Steel universe? I kind of doubt it. One of the reasons why Thor was such a success was because Marvel’s marketing team told you it was connected with the rest of their movies. People who may not have given a crap about Thor went to see it simply because they didn’t want to be confused or left out. Without WB letting Shazam play in the same universe as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, they run the risk of missing out on a huge chunk of the movie going public that would see it because it may lead into Justice League (not to mention the fact that we’ll be denied the chance of seeing The Rock throw down with Henry Cavill in the future).

But enough about WB’s increasingly frustrating inability to do anything right. Let’s cast Shazam! Who could it be? It has to be someone who can go up against the Rock both physically and screen persona wise. He’s also got to be able to convincingly play a child inside a grown man’s body (let’s not forget that Shazam is, essentially, young Billy Batson). So who could pull it off?

Joe Manganiello. Yes, Alcide from True Blood. The guy is ripped, and judging from his appearances on The Soup and The Nerdist Podcast, he’s extremely funny as well. While I’m sure a lot of people will say “the werewolf from True Blood?” He was actually one of the frontrunner for the role of Superman in Man of Steel, and the only reason why he had to drop out of the running was because the producers of True Blood wouldn’t let him cut his hair. I 100% think he’d be perfect, which, judging from all of those Lexenberg rumors from last year, means that he’s no where near the top of WB’s list (or even on it).

Hopefully all of these rumors about Shazam end up being false. I’m all for the film having a lighter tone, but it needs to be a part of the larger DC Cinematic Universe. It can only benefit WB. However, this is the same company that refuses to merge Arrow, a massively successful TV show with the Man of Steel universe, so it’s not unlikely that this rumor could end up being true. For now, we just have to sit and wait.